


Pepperwood In Love

by DreamsOfSleep



Series: Pepperwood AU [2]
Category: New Girl
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Falling In Love, First Time, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:35:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7320862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamsOfSleep/pseuds/DreamsOfSleep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First times in Pepperwood and Night's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. You're It For Me

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon on Tumblr who requested Julius and Jess's first time. I made it a twoshot with them saying "I love you" for the first time as well as their actual "first time." I was stuck for a while on what would lead up to their first time but I realized that Pepperwood would never have slept with Jess if he didn't make it real first so he had to tell her how he felt before that. 
> 
> I got a bunch of requests to develop the Pepperwood/Night relationship. I realized I had to write them in order so they could be different and distinct enough to be interesting to read so I'm going to try and hit their first time, their wedding/1st honeymoon, and then their 2nd honeymoon. For some reason, Pepperwood/Jess smut is a lot more challenging for me to write than Nick/Jess. I developed their emotional intimacy a lot more than their physical intimacy when I wrote my original AU for ["Dark Is The Night,"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7216582/chapters/16377709) so I'm stretching a bit to make this work. Any feedback is appreciated!

For some reason, Jess seems to really like him. She liked him right from that first day and she hasn’t stopped.

He thinks most women are initially attracted to him because they think of him as the “strong, silent type,” but then they always end up hating him for the same reason. They think he’s trying to be intentionally mysterious when he really just doesn’t have that much to say. His mind is always in motion running a million miles a minute with all his thoughts, but he’s never been much good at putting them into words. They all say he works too much, but he’s always honest with them upfront. _Married to the job._ They all try to change him, get him to work less, get him to open up. He tries to because it feels like the thing to do, even though he doesn’t really know who he’s supposed to change into. He gets lonely sometimes but being around people, trying to keep people in his life, is just too fucking exhausting. There are all these rules of human interaction that he can never figure out. All that messy human emotion that can’t be untangled by unassailable logic. He likes the clean black and white lines of the law; he doesn’t like all this messy gray other people bring into his life. He thinks he’s just been alone too long; he’s too set in his ways to let someone else in, to share his life with another person. Dating just feels like having a second job. All the women get upset when he says he just needs them to leave him alone for a while when he sees them after work. It’s nothing personal; he just can’t deal with another fucking person talking at him after spending all day around other people. They all take it personally though. He doesn’t like when they slap him for it. _The raw anger of a woman scorned._ It’s worse when they cry.

Jess doesn’t seem to mind that he is the way he is. She has learned when he needs her to stop talking. He can feel that tension starting to build in his jaw, in his body, and has to go find somewhere to sit by himself for a while at work so he doesn’t say or do something he’ll regret. Sometimes she’ll come and sit by him but she won’t say anything. She’ll just sit down next to him. She’ll reach over and take his hand and give it a squeeze. Eventually he’ll relax and he’ll squeeze her hand back. Then they’ll both get up and go back to work. She has learned to wait for him to come to her; he hates when people force him to do anything. 

For some reason, he finds it really easy to talk her. He doesn’t have that much to say, but when he does, he wants to tell her everything. He looks forward to seeing her every morning at her desk when he walks into work. He’ll bring her a cup of coffee and lean over her desk to tell her some stupid joke that makes her laugh. He really likes her laugh. It makes that dimple appear in her cheek that he always wants to reach out and touch with his fingers. He likes the way joy makes the light dance in her eyes changing them different shades of blue. It makes him want to kiss her, but he resists the urge.

He doesn’t know what they are now exactly. He’s only asked her out for drinks a few times. They haven’t really talked about it, even though they get lunch together every day and he walks her home from work every night. Every time he walks her home, she gives him a kiss on the cheek at her front door. He really wants to kiss her for real, but it doesn’t feel right yet. It feels like an in-between period; they aren’t quite friends, leaning into something more.

\---

He sees Schmidt talking to Jess one day at the front desk. Afterwards, Schmidt drags over an empty chair to sit down at Julius’s desk.

“She’s cute, right?” Schmidt asks him.

“I wouldn’t know…” Julius responds noncommittally, not looking up from his case files.

“I was thinking of asking her out.” That makes Julius pause and look up at Schmidt from his work. He doesn’t say anything; he just looks at him, considering him. Schmidt doesn’t meet his eye. He starts to fidget, messing around with items on Julius’s desk. Rearranging pens and highlighters and paperclips. Gathering the mess of papers on Julius’s desk and tapping them on the table like a deck of cards so they make neat stacks, all edges aligned. 

“I know you and Jess have been spending a lot of time together and I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting in the middle of something.”

Julius looks over at Jess at the front desk. She looks up at him and smiles. He thinks about what he can give her, about a life with her in it. He thinks he feels a strong undefinable _something_ between them that could be something really good, but he also thinks this could all end extremely badly. If past behavior is an indicator of future behavior, all signs point to the latter outcome. He knows what he is. _She’s too good for me. She deserves someone who can give her the whole world and Schmidt is a much better man than I am. I can’t keep her from that._

Julius looks back at Schmidt. “It’s fine, Schmidt. We’re just friends.” He ignores the twist in his gut when he says the words.

Schmidt looks up at him and grins. “Thanks, Julius.” He claps Julius affectionately on the back before returning to his desk. Julius tries to get back to reading the case files but for some reason he’s having a lot of trouble focusing on the lines of text. They blur together so they are no longer just black and white but shades of gray.

\---

When he’s walking her home that night, she brings it up first.

“Schmidt asked me to go out with him,” she says. 

Julius looks over at her, but Jess is looking down at the ground away from him.

“That so?” he says casually, keeping his tone even, his voice carefully neutral.

“I told him I would think about it. What do you think I should do, Julius?”

His chest feels tight. It hurts him, but he can’t say that to her. He swallows. “Schmidt’s a really good guy. I think you should say yes.” 

He keeps walking ahead but he notices she is no longer beside him. He turns back to look at her. She has a wounded expression on her face. 

“What are we, Julius? Friends? Dating?”

“We’re friends who are sometimes attracted to each other. Friends who go out for drinks sometimes. Dating, if you want to call it that. Casual, but not exclusive.” He pauses. “You can date him if you want to, Jess. I don’t own you.”

“Do you _want_ to be exclusive?” she asks him bluntly.

Julius experiences a moment of panic, like he is being shoved into traffic at a busy intersection. _God, he does want that._ But he doesn’t think he can ask her for that. She has a lot of better options. She deserves someone a lot better than him. 

He opts for the safety of silence and they end up just standing in the middle of the sidewalk staring at each other for several long minutes.

She's the one that breaks it. She says to him, “I need to know how you feel, Julius. I need you to tell me.”

He gives her a pained expression. “I can’t, Jess…” _It'll scare you away. And I just want to keep you in my life, even if you aren't mine._

“It’s okay to need someone, Julius. To want someone,” she says quietly, gently. 

She's asking him to tell her how he feels and he's never been able to say no to her. He can’t look at her when he says it. He looks down at his feet. “I like you, Jess…a lot. I don’t want you to see other people.”

“See that wasn’t so hard,” she says. He can hear the smile in her voice. 

He looks back up at her. “Not done yet, Jess…” 

She makes a zipping motion with her thumb and index finger over her mouth and looks at him expectantly to continue. He looks back down at his feet. 

“It’s actually more than like. I want to spend every day with you, the rest of my life with you. You’re everything I’ve been looking for my entire life and I know we’ve only known each other for four months but I already know: you’re it for me.”

He cringes at the words. They sound like too much and not enough all at the same time. It doesn’t sound good enough, not like it does in his head. He wishes he were able to offer her something more concrete from his life, something better than these pitiful words. That was definitely too much; he sounded like some kind of psychotic stalker and he shouldn’t have said anything. Or at least he should have told her a modified version of it, but he never knew how to lie to her. 

He looks down at his feet and waits for her to reject him. She takes him by surprise when she leans in close and stands up on her tiptoes to kiss him. His hands go up to cup her face. Her lips are soft just like he imagined they would be. He sweeps his tongue over her mouth once. He can taste her cherry lip gloss. She nips his bottom lip gently, once, and he feels a flare of desire for her in his gut. When she pulls away from him, they are both breathing hard. She says breathlessly, “I love you too, Julius.” 

He can’t help the grin that breaks over his face. _He can feel himself standing way out on the ledge with no safety net, but he’s not afraid. He wants to jump._

“I haven’t thought this far ahead, Jess…What happens now?”

She loops her arm through his. “Take me home, Julius,” she says.

They walk along in companionable silence. It's what they've been doing for months, but it feels different tonight. The world looks a little brighter, the air feels a little cleaner.

When they get to her front door, he presses her up against it and kisses her for all he’s worth like he’s been wanting to do ever since he met her. 


	2. Bare

It’s been a month since he told Jess he loved her and Jess told him she loved him back. It’s been a pretty great month. To anyone else looking at their relationship from the outside, it might look the same: _He brings her a coffee on his way in to work, he flirts with her at the front desk, they have lunch together, they go out for drinks sometimes, he walks her home._ But he knows it's different. They belong to each other now. He's glad that she made him brave enough to tell her how he felt. He no longer has to lie awake at night and wonder what his life would be like if she were his. She actually _is_ his now.

That ball of tension in his gut has started to unravel. He walks around in a perpetual good mood wearing a goofy smile on his face. It freaks out everyone else at work. Schmidt eyes him suspiciously and mutters, "Invasion of the body snatchers," under his breath. _'Sorry, not sorry,'_ Julius thinks. The most perfect, wonderful woman in the world is in love with him and he doesn't care who knows it. He'd shout it from the damn rooftops if he could.

\---

He’s not a naturally affectionate guy but she brings that out in him, that impulse to touch her. He feels a preternatural want for her every time he looks at her. He had never really wanted anybody else the way he wanted her. He never liked other people touching him, but he wanted her to touch him, wanted to let her in. 

Now every time he takes her home and walks her to her door, they end up making out hot and heavy in front of it. He never pushes her to come in because he never wants her to feel like she owes him anything. He never wants her to feel like she _has_ to do anything for him, just like she never forces him to do anything he doesn’t want to do. He always kisses her hard on the mouth right before he leaves then tells her he’ll see her tomorrow. He’ll force himself to step back from her, his hand trailing down her arm because his body still wants to stay. Going home to his place where he lives alone without her, missing her the entire time.

\---

One night when he turns to leave, she touches his arm and he turns back around to face her. 

“Do you want to come inside?” she asks him.

He feels butterflies in his stomach. He can feel the heat of her hand on his arm through his coat. “Are you sure?” 

She nods shyly. She takes him by the hand and opens her front door, leading him into her apartment.

\---

Inside, she takes off her shoes and hangs up her coat by the front door and he follows her lead.

“Do you want something to drink? Some wine?” she asks him as she heads into the kitchen.

“Sure,” he says. He goes to sit on her couch. His palms are slightly sweaty.

She comes to sit next to him on the couch and hands him a glass of pink wine. He only takes a few sips because he doesn’t want to get sloppy drunk. Whenever they go out for drinks, he doesn’t think Jess notices that he usually orders something non-alcoholic. _Orange and bitters. Seltzer with a twist. Cranberry and soda water._ Alcohol always makes him feel really good, but it also makes him feel out of control in a way he doesn’t like. He likes alcohol a lot, but it really doesn’t like him back. It doesn’t lower his inhibitions as much as completely destroy them. He’s an emotional, sometimes mean drunk. He doesn’t want her to see him that way. He likes being present, completely in the moment with her. He likes knowing everything he feels for her is real and not the result of the golden push of alcohol through his bloodstream, that the memories he makes with her won't be tainted by the regret of tomorrow's hangovers.

He watches her drink her wine, the long swallow along her elegant neck. She has a beauty mark on her collarbone and he reaches out to touch it, grazing his fingers along the hollow of her throat. It makes her flush, her pale skin turning wonderfully scarlet. Her blue eyes darken as she gazes back at him. Her hand reaches out to cover his hand still resting lightly on her neck. She places her wineglass on the coffee table and he does the same as she stands up and leads him to her bedroom.

\---

She’s kissing him while pushing him towards the bed. He reaches out to unbutton her cardigan, but she pushes him back to sit on the bed. “I can,” she whispers. She undresses slow and sweet for him. She is dressed demurely for work in a cardigan, blouse, and pencil skirt with sheer thigh-high stockings. Her hair is done-up in a French twist. Tendrils of her hair have come loose from her updo during the course of the day. She reaches up to unpin it the rest of the way so her hair spills down her shoulders the way he likes. She takes off her cardigan and unbuttons her blouse while humming to herself. She unzips her skirt and it pools at her feet. She unrolls her stockings slowly down her legs. He watches it all, his eyes drinking her in, trying to memorize her in this moment doing all of this just for him. 

She is standing before him in just her bra and panties. She reaches behind her to unhook her bra to reveal her naked breasts to him. Her fingers hook into her panties and she lowers them over her hips and down her legs, stepping out of them. She is completely bare before him. His eyes jump up to her face, carefully not looking at her naked form before him. It doesn’t feel like something he should be allowed to do, even though she invited him in. His careful not looking seems to make her self-conscious though and she goes to cover herself up with her arms as much as she can, hugging them around herself and looking away from him down at the floor.

“C’mere,” he breathes out. She approaches him sitting on the bed with her arms still crossed in front of her. He rests his hands gently on her hips. “You’re stunning, Jess. A total knockout. The type of girl guys make art about. You take my breath away every time I look at you. You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. Sometimes I just have to look away from you so I can catch my breath, but I still never want to stop looking at you.” He reaches out and gently pushes her arms down so she is uncovered to him again. She’s beautiful and his. _‘I don’t deserve you,’_ he thinks to himself. He kisses the skin above her heart.

As if she can read his mind, she whispers to him, “I always knew you were someone special, Julius.” She cups his face and gives him a long, lingering kiss on the mouth. Her hands reach out to undo his tie. She unbuttons his dress shirt and eases it off his shoulders, down his arms. She pushes him onto his back on the bed and undoes his pants, dragging them down his legs along with his boxers so that he is bare before her. 

She is straddling him, ravishing above him. He is drunk on the intoxicating feel of her skin against his skin; it makes him feel out of control in the best way. Not dangerously reckless like when he is drunk on alcohol, but _alive._ He runs his hands up her sides to cup her breasts. She’s watching his face, seeing him completely unguarded and vulnerable for the first time the way he isn’t in the rest of his life, letting himself want her. She sees him fighting the impulse to pull back from her, to hide all his messy human feelings inside himself, but she also sees that spark of desire in his eyes to put his hands on her, all over her, and it thrills her.

She starts to move on him, building up a steady rhythm. He grips her hips tightly. She grinds down on him and that makes him bite back a groan. It makes her smile; she likes hearing what she does to him, how she makes him deliciously undone. His eyes keep falling shut, but he forces himself to open them because he likes watching her, _the way she bites her lip, the way she tosses back her hair, the flush of her cheeks, her brilliant blue eyes darkened with desire for him._ He likes the way they fit together, _the pressure of her body on his, the feel of her skin under his hands, the insistent press of her mouth against his, her breathy gasps, the sharp clean smell of her, the subtle salty taste of her sweat, his hands tangled in her hair._ When he’s close, she can tell he’s trying to hold back and she whispers _let go_ to him and he does. She wants to memorize the look on his face when he releases into her, letting himself go just for her. 

\---

Afterwards, she lies on top of him and listens to him trying to catch his breath. His eyes are closed and his arms are wrapped around her holding her against him. Her head is resting against his chest and she can hear the erratic pitter-patter of his heart. His hand strokes her back. She tilts her head up to look at him and when he opens his eyes, he has an awed expression on his face looking back at her. He leans in to kiss her and flips them over so she is underneath him. 

He sits back up on the bed so he can take in the sight of her bare before him. “You’re a gorgeous woman, Jessica,” he whispers to her. He runs a hand down her whole body, touching her from her throat all the way down to her ankles. It makes goosebumps break out all over her skin. He presses kisses down the length of her. Her legs go up over his shoulders as he licks his way between her thighs. He makes her feel as good as she made him feel until she is trembling and boneless against him. 

\---

In the morning when he wakes up, he just lies in bed for a few minutes with his eyes closed. His mind is blissfully empty. He’s not thinking about work or anxious about a million different things like he usually is…he’s just thinking about her. He feels content and happy in a way he’s never been. He stretches and rubs sleep from his eyes. He reaches over for her but the bed is empty. 

He sits up and sees her in the doorway wearing his shirt and holding a breakfast tray. She’s just wearing his shirt and nothing else. It hits her mid-thigh and is hastily buttoned up, revealing just the barest hint of cleavage. Her long raven hair spills down her shoulders; her legs are bare. His shirt is big on her so she’s all covered up, but he can still see the feminine shape of her. _That’s her in a nutshell, equal parts sweet and sexy without even trying._ He really likes seeing her in his clothes. It feels intimate and comfortable, like it’s just something she does now, that it means she belongs to him.

She smiles at him when she sees he’s awake. She walks over and places the tray on the nightstand. She cups his cheek affectionately and he kisses her hand. She reaches over to the tray and picks up a strawberry to feed him. He licks her fingers afterwards and it makes her giggle. It makes the light dance in her eyes and he no longer has to resist the urge to kiss her. 

“C’mere,” he growls at her. He pulls her close to him and presses his mouth to hers. He pushes her back on the bed to love her up all over again. 


End file.
